Czars, or functionaries with the task of ensuring White House commands are followed, have been part of the U.S. government for decades. It's unclear, though, how many are in this administration, as it is not an official title. PolitiFact.com from the St. Petersburg Times believes the count has swelled to as many as 28 under President Obama.
Many of these czars, most of whom are useless or counterproductive, are sitting in newly created positions. They range from Kenneth Feinberg, the pay czar who is the special master on executive compensation, to Earl Devaney, who, as the stimulus accountability czar, will chair the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. Others among the 28 include:
• Green jobs czar. This post is held by Van Jones. Officially he is Obama's special adviser for enterprise and innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Jones was a founder and leader of Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement. The group, now disbanded, had Marxist, Leninist and Maoist influences.
Jones admitted that he became a communist and radical after the officers accused of using excessive force on Rodney King were acquitted. He's supposedly a reformed anti-capitalist, but not everyone is convinced.
• TARP czar. Herb Allison is assistant secretary of the Treasury for financial stability. There's nothing alarming in his background, but there should be concerns about the position he's filling.
• Great Lakes czar. Cameron Davis is a special adviser overseeing the EPA's Great Lakes restoration plan. He's president of the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes conservation group.
• Science czar. John Holdren is an ideologue who frets over global warming (junk science) and is a pessimist (in 1980 he thought the world was running out of natural resources) and misanthrope (he's favored population control).
• Climate czar. Before Todd Stern was appointed, he was a senior fellow at the left-wing Center for American Progress. His empty rhetoric on global warming can hardly be distinguished from that of Al Gore.
• Car czar. Ed Montgomery, a University of Maryland dean, economist and a Labor Department deputy secretary in the Clinton administration, is director of recovery for auto communities and workers. He's no raving leftist, but he is discharging a duty the government should never have.
• Guantanamo closure czar. Danny Fried has the duty of overseeing the closure of the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay. The longtime diplomat has to navigate the fulfillment of Obama's promise to shut down Gitmo, a promise that helped get Obama elected but was always foolish.
• Faith-based czar. Dare we say that Joshua DuBois, director of the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, is a community organizer? The 26-year-old pastor worked for Democratic Congressmen Rush Holt of New Jersey and Charles Rangel of New York. (Does anyone want to give me another ACORN flag????)
• Urban affairs Czar. The White House has a director of urban affairs — Adolfo Carrion Jr. — but no czar for rural affairs. What does that say about how this administration values country folks?
• Regulatory czar. Obama wants to fill this post with Cass Sunstein, the Harvard law professor who has suggested "that animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives," against people in our civil court system. Sunstein would likely do a fine job of regulating the country into paralysis.
The growth of a czarist regime is not healthy in a representative republic. When the executive branch isn't checked by the Supreme Court, which shouldn't let the president make fiat law, and Congress, which constitutionally confirms or denies a president's nominees for "public ministers," a risky imbalance of power arises.
Someone who considers himself a defender of the Constitution — say Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who believes presidents intentionally try to bypass Congress by naming czars — should challenge the administration in court.
The White House shouldn't be center of a dynasty.
Then when you add all this to Obama’s control and manipulation of the media which knocks out another check and balance… there are real problems!!
Source: ibdeditorials.com/
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
It seems every day there is another example of media deception in America. With the Fourth of July approaching, it is well worth remembering why the Founding Fathers gave the press special privileges. They wanted journalists to report honestly, to give the folks accurate, unbiased information so they could make informed decisions about who should hold power. Many of the Founders, like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, didn't much like the press, but they understood that, for a democratic Republic to work, voters need honest information.
Unfortunately, the vision of a free and honest press is fast disappearing in America. Let me give you yet another vivid example. This week a poll by The New York Times asked: "Would you be willing to pay higher taxes so that all Americans have health insurance?
Fifty-seven percent said they were willing, 37 percent were not willing, and 6 percent had no opinion.
So, according to the Times, Americans overwhelmingly want government financed health care. That's what the poll says, right?
But if you read all the way down to the bottom of the poll, you see another question. "Who did you vote for (in the presidential election)?"
Forty-eight percent said Barack Obama, and just 25 percent answered John McCain. The rest, 19 percent, did not vote. Wow, that's almost two to one for Obama.
But the popular vote tally in the election last November was 53 percent for Obama and 46 percent for McCain. Wait a minute. That's a lot closer than two to one. Apparently The New York Times skewed the polling by offering the questions to mostly Obama voters. I'm shocked they supported higher taxes for federal health care, aren't you?
This kind of dishonesty is not uncommon in the media. The Times says its poll is "scientific." Sure it is. Scientifically stacking the deck.
I believe very few people read the entire poll before digesting the health care headline. The result is a flawed perception of what the American public really wants. The folks may indeed support Uncle Sam paying some heavy medical bills, but this poll is not a reflection of anything other than a New York Times deception.
By the way, CBS News also had its name on that poll.
As a media guy who wants accurate information, that kind of stuff tees me off. As soon as the pollsters learned that most of the respondents were Obama people, they should have thrown the results out. But the Times ardently favors national health care and a huge federal government. So the con played out.
The most frustrating part about this is that nothing can be done. The Times has an ombudsman, but he's a joke, and no outside agency has any power over the paper. It can pretty much do what it wants, and does.
It is true that the Times and some other media outlets, most committed left, are on the brink of bankruptcy. The liberal papers say the Internet is to blame, and that's partly true.
But the folks are beginning to understand that the informational fix is in. What good is "all the news that's fit to print" if the news is bogus?
The Times might want to poll that question.
by Bill O'Reilly
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Press Finally draws first blood on their turf
President Barack Obama made news at a press conference last week – by planting a question with a blogger, not by offering anything new in spite of taking his sharpest questions to date.
The sharper edge of reporters’ questions had much to do with the setting, one White House press corps member said afterward: “It was our turf, in our seats … no formality of the East Room or even (the) Rose Garden. So I think when we're comfortable, we're more likely to fire back at him for follow-ups.”
Obama coming unarmed with news led to more probing, analytical-style questions which can always tie up presidents.
The planted query (the White House denies it being planted) came from Huffington Post blogger Nico Pitney; an administration official phoned him ahead of time to suggest that Obama would take a particular question from him.
“Planted questions undermine the integrity of the process,” says Mark Rozell, professor of public policy at George Mason University.
If the president wanted to offer a response to a communication from an Iranian citizen, Rozell explains, that would have been fine. “But citizens are led to believe that the questions in the press conferences are not known in advance by the president and his staff and that the process has some degree of spontaneity.”
To be sure, presidents and their staffs spend serious time anticipating likely questions and preparing answers. They have a really good record of being able to anticipate most of what a president is asked by reporters; not a lot of surprises occur.
Every so often, in response to an unanticipated question, a president will give a candid answer – and then the press conference becomes especially newsworthy.
But if “the questions are planted, then what is the point, really?” Rozell asks.
Presidential historian Joel Goldstein says the press should play an independent role and its independence is compromised if reporters simply serve up questions provided to them.
“I think there are real concerns regarding the future of the media,” he says. “Bloggers provide access to many (readers), yet much of what then passes for journalism lacks the professionalism of the good political reporters and columnists, whose experience provides a context in which to present current events.”
Part of the problem, though, is with Americans. Just look at our obsession this news cycle regarding the Gov. Mark Sanford story.
“Surely the Sanford story has many tragic dimensions, but was it really the most important story last week to justify the sort of coverage it got on CNN and MSNBC?” Goldstein wonders.
“For my money, the Senate's cloture vote on Harold Koh's nomination, Iran, health care, Korean threats, (Cap-and-Trade… ah Cap-and-Tax) etc., will have more impact on our lives than the fact that yet another ‘family values’ politician has acted in a manner which is inconsistent with what he preaches.” And as big the loss of Ed McMahan, Farrah Faucet and the the King of Pop, Michael Jackson… virtually ignoring the House’s latest snow job of slipping in another unread bill on Cap-and-Tax that will change America’s way of life forever if not stopped in the Senate is deplorable!!
Villanova University’s Lara Brown offers two reasons why this particular press conference is just the beginning of what we can expect between the press and the president: Obama’s slipping popularity numbers, and the roughing-up of his policies on Capitol Hill.
Obama and his staff, she says, may be increasingly concerned about too many substantive questions from reporters who may smell blood.
Perhaps it is not so surprising that Team Obama might create a diversion at a press conference, to get everyone talking about the diversion instead of reporting on substantive issues – health care, energy, the economy, the budget deficit, Iran, the president's lack of engagement on many of these issues – that do not reflect well on Obama.
It’s a political strategy that can be summed up as “Look at my right hand, so you don't watch what my left one is doing.”
Remember that old song, “Smooth Operator?” Obama is just that – the smoothest operator that Purdue’s Rockman says he has ever seen.
While such tricks may not jeopardize a free press, Rockman is “worried about the decline of traditional media and reporters without axes to bear.
“There is no doubt that the ‘new media’ is actually leading us back to a 19th-century party-press, where we read only what we agree with,” he says. And that “is a genuine concern.”
Since last week’s press conference, three things have emerged that will probably change how Obama approaches a microphone.
First, there definitely will be more scrutiny of blogger questions from Obama-friendly websites. Second, since first-blood has been drawn, the press will engage in a frenzied feeding.
And third, that probably was the last time Obama will step to the podium without real news to take queries about.
by Salena Zito
Source: TownHall.com
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
Related Resources:
Quote: The Greatest Threat to U.S. is Liberal Media Bias
Watch - YouTube - Congressman: Greatest Threat to U.S. is Liberal Media Bias
"To me, the greatest threat to America is not necessarily a recession or terrorist attack. The greatest threat is a liberal media bias. I think that because the American people do not get the facts and if they do not get that, they cannot get good decisions. Then our democracy would be taken away."
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Katie Couric, in her commencement speech at Princeton, made a few jokes at the expense of Rush Limbaugh, Donald Rumsfeld, Eliot Spitzer, and Sarah Palin.
The full speech is at HuffPost, but here are a few highlights.
- When Princeton called to invite me, I was thrilled. It also gave me a perfect excuse for turning down Harvard and Yale — my safety schools! And since I’ve been called a cougar lately in the tabloid press — today I’m very happy to be an honorary tiger! Coming here was a real no-brainer! After all, I can see New Jersey from my house!
- There may be some opportunities in the Republican Party. They’re still looking for an effective spokesman, and the only person they can find so far is Rush Limbaugh ... and he won’t take the job because he doesn’t want to give up his prescription plan.
- I understand Class of 54’s Donald Rumsfeld has been charged with guarding the Big Cannon. I don’t want to say he’s taking his job too far, but he’s reportedly been telling President Obama there are weapons of mass destruction hidden at Rutgers.
- And topping off the list [of former graduates], there's former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. Given his status as client number nine, it seems particularly fitting that he's a graduate of "Woody Woo."
(This post has been updated).
By Michael Calderone 04:16 PM
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
If this is where and from whom you are getting your news… please please please please please… expand or change sources (Fox Cable News) and trade an hour of your TV, video game or whatever extra curricular activity for an hour of serious reading… We suggest some of the books highlighted on this site.
